“No, I don’t trust our gov’ment,” said Josiah for the tenth time, when a cornet solo, the Battle of Prague (“Bandsman Rosher”) had been brought to a triumphant close. “Never have trusted ’em if it comes to that.”
“That’s because you’re a blooming Tory,” ventured the only hungry looking member of an extremely well-nourished looking committee—an obvious intellectual with piercing black eyes and fiercely picturesque mustache whose hue was as the raven.
“Politics is barred, Lewis!” It was the President’s Saturday morning manner at the City Hall, but its austerity was tactfully mitigated by a dexterous passing of the cigar box. “We ought to go in now ... this minute. What do you say, Weiss?”
The master hair-dresser screwed up a pair of vulpine eyes and then replied in a low harsh guttural, “It is a big t’ing to fight Chermany.”
“We are not afraid of you,” interjected a pugnacious Committee-man. “Don’t you think that.”
The President held up a stern finger. “No, no, Jennings.” It was a breach of taste and the President glared at the offender from under his cabbage leaf. He had a deep instinct for fair play, a curious impartiality that enabled him to see the merits of Weiss as a taxpayer and a citizen. In the lump he approved of Germans as little as any one else, but such a man as Weiss with his unceasing industry, his organizing capacity, his business ability and his social qualities was a real asset to the city.
The little hair-dresser broke a solemn pause. “We are not ready for war.” He stressed the “we” to the plain annoyance of several committee-men, although Josiah was not of the number. “A month from now they’ll be in Paris.”
“I don’t think,” said the truculent Jennings.
“You’ll see, my tear,” said Julius Weiss.